Qualebook

Qualebook

About

A quality checklist for ebooks

As it enters the age of maturity, digital publishing has had to develop industrialization processes of a new type for an essentially paper-based industry. The standardization of a digital book distribution format was obtained by the development of the EPUB format. Then came the industrialization of digital reading software, with the appearance of initiatives such as the Readium project. The ongoing diffusion of LCP digital rights management technology also contributes to this standardization movement.

The digitization of publishing is today also subject to external injunctions linked to legal provisions and societal issues, which are not equally controlled by players in the sector. For their digital production to remain profitable while meeting the expectations of audiences and financiers, publishing houses must acquire varied skills, which cannot be limited to typography: performance, interoperability, accessibility, eco-design, security or the management of personal data must also be mastered by these teams. Good coordination of these expertises is also imperative.

This increasing complexity of the normative framework for digital publishing also has the side effect of further distancing the profession from the concerns of publishers, thus creating gaps and misunderstandings between the design, production, distribution and management teams. This creates difficulties for the publishing professions in terms of decision-making, risk management, training, methods, resources and governance. In industrialized sectors, quality assurance, quality management, quality control, certifications, quality specialists, methods, techniques and training are commonplace. The digital publishing sector is now ready to arm itself with these tools to integrate and assimilate various external expertise.

Qualebook is a work in progress

The project was first incubated in 2023, first version was prepared in 2024. The year 2025 was dedicated to testing this checklist with professional teams in workshop settings. In 2026, the focus will be on consolidation and building collaborations to extend the project.

Authors

Qualebook is developed by the European Laboratory for Digital Reading (EDRLab) and the Digital commission, Norms & Standards Group, of the French Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE). The rules have been developed from the 240-item Opquast web quality assurance checklist, created by the company OPQUAST. "

Public presentations

How to collaborate?

There are several ways to comment, discuss, and propose changes or improvements: • Open an issue on the tracking tool (requires a GitHub account) • Send us an email

Under what license is the content of this site licensed?

• The rules are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. You may use them freely, provided you maintain attribution to the authors, for example via a link to: • License for the original content of the Opquast checklist sheets: Elie Sloïm, Laurent Denis, and the Opquast company. View original license.

What Qualebook is not

Qualebook is not a standard or a norm. It is not intended to replace existing technical definitions, but rather to highlight them and make them understandable to the entire inter-professional sector.